Mumbai: Western Railway To Spend Crores On Cleaning Garbage!

Next time you see someone throw a sachet of pan masala, or plastic bottle on rail tracks, remember that public money is getting wasted on cleaning and removing them. Following complaints made by various passenger associations over cleanliness to the Western Railway, the latter has told that they will be spending more than Rs 2 crore only for removing these plastic materials from rail tracks.

“We had raised the issue of plastic bottles and covers choking the drains and had asked the rail authorities to clean them,” said Kailash Verma, member, Mumbai Rail Pravasi Sangh.

Senior WR officials said that they will be spending Rs 2.02 crore on cleaning and removing plastic bottles, covers from rail tracks between Churchgate to Virar. “We have called tenders for the same,” said a WR official. On an average night, 10 train coaches of rubbish and muck are carted away from the city.

These sachets, bottles and covers are one of the main reasons behind water logging on tracks during monsoon as they choke the drainage system and culverts criss-crossing the rail lines. During the recent high-level meeting chaired by Union Railway minister Piyush Goyal, the civic bodies were asked to co-operate with the Indian Railways as far as prevention of water logging on tracks is concerned for which removing these muck and garbage is essential. Read More…